All Politics Posts

It was a sunny day on Daniel Moynihan’s farm in July 1999 when Hillary Clinton first launched her own political career and months later she would officially announce her candidacy for the U.S. Senate as a New Democrat. She extolled the values of “opportunity, community, responsibility and enterprise.”

In her announcement, Hillary backed a balanced budget, investments in education, welfare reform, tougher child support measures, more police and even teacher testing. She stressed the need for new jobs for New York and for continued economic progress.

She launched a campaign that was aimed at the largely Republican working class voters of upstate New York. It’s central promise was that no child should have to leave their hometown to find a good job.
She explained that the way to overcome the march of technology and globalization was to modernize the region for the 21st century. It was the kind of optimistic view of the future and the economy that got Bill Clinton elected in 1992.

Shannon N. Green speaks with Mark J. Penn, President and Managing Director of the Stagwell Group and member of the CSIS Commission on Countering Violent Extremism. Mark discusses the findings of CSIS’s Global Perceptions of Violent Extremism Survey, which was conducted in eight key countries. During this conversation, Mark talks about how diverging perceptions of violent extremism’s causes and manifestations have shaped the conversation surrounding CVE today.

From the viewpoint of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Mark Penn joined The Atlantic’s Washington Editor at Large, Steve Clemons for an in depth conversation on the state of the race and the many issues facing the country.

A survey reveals deep uncertainty the country’s future—but also growing consensus on issues like same-sex marriage and marijuana.

Historically, Americans have been optimistic about the future and confident about our leadership in the world, while at the same time being deeply divided on so-called social issues like same-sex marriage and marijuana use. That trend appears to be reversing, giving way to what might be called an age of impossibility, where Americans are deeply uncertain about our country’s future, according to a special survey commissioned for The Atlantic and the Aspen Institute for the tenth Aspen Ideas Festival. The survey, an online poll of more than 2,000 Americans, was conducted by Penn Schoen Berland, working with Burson-Marsteller, from May 28 to 31, 2014.

The poll is a jarring wake-up call to anyone who still believes America is a country of optimists. Nearly two-thirds of Americans—65 percent—question whether America will be on the right track in 10 years. They are also split on whether the country will be a “land of opportunity” (33 percent say yes, 42 percent say no, and 24 percent say they don’t know). In their view, the American Dream itself seems to be fading. Seven in 10 Americans have real doubts about whether working hard and playing by the rules will bring success in the future. They are also concerned about their children’s futures. Despite falling unemployment in many states, 64 percent of parents believe it will be difficult for their children to find good jobs in 10 years.

Huffington Post: We Need a Shot in the Arm, if Not a MoonshotBy Mark Penn and Don Baer, November 11, 2013

The recent dysfunction in Washington, with its massive collateral damage to the economy and national morale, couldn’t have come at a worse time. It was no mere blip in America’s otherwise good spirits. In fact, Americans haven’t thought the country was on the right track since 2004.

And now, according to a global poll commissioned by Thomson Reuters on “The New Professional,” it seems that not only are professionals in developed markets like the U.S. low on the drive, hunger, and entrepreneurial spirit that used to fuel our economy — but professionals in emerging-market countries like China, India, and Brazil are more than picking up the slack.

According to the poll, conducted by Penn Schoen Berland in partnership with Thomson Reuters in February and March of this year, only 29 percent of professionals in developed markets such as the US and the UK describe themselves as “always” or “almost always” optimistic, compared to a sizeable 48 percent of professionals in emerging-market countries such as China, India, and Brazil. When asked to rate the statement “I believe hard work will always be rewarded,” a paltry 17 percent of developed-market professionals strongly agreed, compared to 42 percent of emerging-market professionals. And regarding the statement, “I want to be able to be entrepreneurial in my job,” only 30 percent of developed-market professionals strongly agreed, compared to fully 58 percent of professionals in emerging markets.

Mark Penn, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton, discusses public opinion polling and its role in presidential decision making with senior officials from the Clinton and George W. Bush White Houses.

Huffington Post: A Public Ready to Act Against Genocide, in Syria and BeyondBy Mark Penn and Michael Abramowitz, July 24, 2012

Conventional wisdom has it that our country is turning inward. But with dramatic global events that often unfold on the Internet, the public seems to have a heightened awareness of the risk of genocide and other kinds of mass atrocities — and want our leaders to act.

A new poll we worked on together suggests that Americans in fact care very much about preventing genocide in other countries, want our government to be actively engaged in stopping it and are willing to employ military force under certain conditions.

The findings emerge from a random telephone poll of 1,000 Americans conducted by Penn, Schoen, and Berland for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. We wanted to gauge how Americans think about the prevention of genocide and other mass atrocities, an oft-neglected element of our foreign policy agenda.

At its core, our new poll shows that Americans are both idealistic and realistic when it comes to preventing genocide.

Americans believe genocide is a clear threat today and that we can do something about it: More than 90 percent of the people we polled say they believe that genocide is not just a phenomenon of the past and could occur today, and two thirds believe it is preventable. They do not see such atrocities just as part of ancient feuding between peoples that we cannot do anything about — that kind of thinking has precluded effective action in the past. They see genocide as a tool used by political leaders to accomplish political goals.

The Republican strategist and Democratic pollster in their biweekly face-off about Election 2012

Penn: Obama’s pick of Biden in 2008 was based on filling a void in foreign policy experience, not to win the state of Delaware. Foreign policy was a major topic of the election, and Biden’s experience serving for several years as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee perfectly complemented Obama and made up for what he lacked.

Romney will also try to use his Vice Presidential pick to make up for the voids in his biography rather than in electoral votes. So far, his greatest weakness has been his inability to connect with middle and working class voters. In a recent CNN poll, Romney wins only 43% of Americans who make under $50,000, 11 points lower than Obama.

Romney will likely pick a running mate who can combat his image of a super-wealthy CEO, and for that, my guess is he will look to Tim Pawlenty. Pawlenty grew up as the son of a truck driver in St. Paul, Minnesota. He worked his way through school and was the only child in his family to graduate from college. His story would win Romney greater support among middle and working class Americans.

But while Pawlenty is the smart biographical choice, that is not necessarily the best strategic play. A game-changing candidate such as Marco Rubio or Condoleezza Rice would help re-energize Romney’s tepid campaign. Neither would be a Sarah Palin-like destructive force, and both would help him where he is hurts most — Rubio would help Romney win back some of the Hispanic vote and ultimately even the state of Florida. Dr. Rice, on the other hand, would help him with women and perhaps even improve his image in the African American community. A game-changer could work this time around.

The Republican strategist and the Democratic pollster reflect on which core beliefs are still central to our lives.

Penn: My hope this July 4th is that we focus as Americans on reviving our sport values — values that have made us great and can rekindle our optimism for the future as they have done many times before. From Jesse Owens’s victories in the 1936 Berlin Olympics to the “Miracle on Ice” in Lake Placid in 1980, great athletic events have crystalized our faith in the country.

These days, sports are marred by scandals that go far beyond cheating, and it seems that every feel-good sports moment has its nefarious counterpart. Sports have always represented American values of fair competition, community, hard work, and the American Dream. But Americans believe our values are in decline, and while this is most clearly attributed to a lack of faith in political and economic institutions, perhaps our athletic institutions best demonstrate why we as a nation have become pessimistic about our values.

To take one example, in the same study, Americans found the use of performance enhancing drugs by athletes to be the least morally acceptable behavior in a list that included prostitution, underage drinking, human cloning, and illegal drug use. Every time a scandal hits the sports world, it shakes our trust in our athletic institutions and people who are seen as role models, especially by the Millennial generation. According to the values poll, 45% of Americans age 18–29 say that celebrities and professional athletes have a fair amount or a great deal of influence on developing their beliefs of right and wrong. This is higher than the 42% of the same group who say the same of political leaders, and only slightly lower than the 51% who say that religious leaders have the same amount of influence on their values. We need to hold athletes (as well as other public figures) to a higher moral standard if we are to reverse the pessimism and restore faith in values that American sports have in the past, and can once again, embody. The Olympics will provide our athletes a new opportunity to shine and rise above it all in our best tradition.

Two-thirds of Americans say the country is headed in the wrong direction, according to a survey conducted by Penn Schoen Berland. On NPR News Talk of the Nation, Mark Penn explains that though Americans are losing confidence in the nation, they have retained a sense of personal optimism.

DONVAN: So what we’re seeing here, is it kind of a redesign of the American dream or at least the way that people are describing it to themselves?

PENN: Well, I think that Americans, you have to bear in mind, are always a little pessimistic. I mean, it’s really quite common for Americans to rag on current conditions at the same time that half of them also think in an optimistic way because people often think the external world has significant problems that can’t be surmounted, but they usually see their internal world as a world of promise of hope. And they still mostly see that in America, though we’ll have to say we’ve gone through perhaps the longest period of pessimism, in what I always joke as recorded polling history in the last decade.

DONVAN: And what is it that people are losing faith in? Is it institutions?

PENN: Well, they are losing a lot of faith in their politicians. Wall Street came out miserably in this survey. I think less than 20 percent believe the people on Wall Street share common American values, which shows what a hill they have to climb. I think there’s some dispirit with the overall capitalist system. They think the economy is going in the wrong direction. What haven’t people lost faith in, in terms of outside institutions? Virtually every one.

DONVAN: And, you know, I know we always have a tendency to look in the rearview mirror only about 10 yards down the road, so it’s almost hard to believe that there was a time when people had more confidence in institutions. But is there a recent – is it recent that we – that a majority of Americans had a kind of faith in the institutions that represent them, by Wall Street and by their churches and by the electoral process? Was there…

PENN: I think the second Clinton administration was probably as close to the last heyday as we really had. I think probably the period from probably Clinton’s second election through – until 9/11 occurred was probably a very optimistic period. People thought that America was on top again, preparing for the 21st century. Two-thirds of the public thought things were going in the right direction. We really haven’t seen that in a long time.

DONVAN: Interesting trends you find in generational differences. Let’s talk about a couple of those. One is the open-mindedness of the younger generation. On what topics in particular are younger Americans coming out as more open minded?

PENN: Well, I think younger Americans here are expressing themselves as considerably more socially liberal than the older generation, and it’s interesting because the older generation now is the generation that voted for Kennedy. So whether it’s living together without marriage, whether it’s homosexuality, all of these various topics that have been difficult topics of discussion the older generation still finds morally unacceptable, the younger generation finds quite acceptable. And so there is a big split on social values between the two. Now, you don’t really know what happens to the younger generation when they get older.

A new poll on values shows that there’s less faith in Washington, Wall Street, and even God. But Americans still think they can get anything they want through sheer hard work.

America’s values are in upheaval, triggered by the advance of technology, prolonged pessimism, and a loss of confidence in major social, political, economic, and religious institutions, according to a poll of more than 2,000 Americans commissioned by The Atlantic and The Aspen Institute for the Aspen Ideas Festival. The poll was conducted by Penn Schoen Berland between May 25 and June 6, 2012.

While Americans have become far more socially tolerant of different lifestyles, they have become far more cynical about Wall Street, the ability to succeed on one’s own merits, the future of their children, and even the existence of God, according to the poll.

America is in many ways unhappy with itself and the pop-culture it has become.

More than two thirds (69 percent) believe that American values have declined, and they point to political corruption, increased materialism, declining family values, and a celebrity-obsessed culture as the culprits.

Religious freedom is named as a core value, and yet fewer Americans are embracing any religion. Overall, 89 percent of Americans now say that they believe in God, down from 98 percent in a 1967 Gallup poll. The youngest generation shows an even sharper decline to 81 percent, though people often become more religious after they have children or start a family. By all measures ­- from basic belief to weekly attendance ­– religion and religious life are trending down in importance in American life.

The 137 million voters registered to go to the polls this November will not look like the 131 million who voted for President in 2008. And they are vastly different from the 96 million who voted the year Bill Clinton was re-elected. The U.S. has been changed by circumstance, economics, demographics and the simple passage of time. We are a youth-obsessed country that has never been older. We think of ourselves as politically polarized, but the edges are shrinking as the political center expands. The two campaigns are focusing on the ethnically static industrial Midwest while Latino voters in the South and West boom. We talk of ourselves as a nation of struggling workers, but the votes that matter most may be the swelling ranks of high-earning, college-educated professionals.

In this complex landscape, battlegrounds appear to be everywhere. Barack Obama must match or improve on his remarkable 2008 showing among Latino voters. That seems likely but is not guaranteed. Mitt Romney enjoys a striking advantage among America’s fast-growing senior-citizen set, which is worried about the economy. Independents are almost evenly split, with Romney enjoying a slight advantage. Which means the election will be decided by a hard-to-typecast kind of voter, one likely drawn from the growing ranks of new professions that have emerged from the U.S.’s high-tech and services-based economy. Neither candidate has captured the hearts, heads or wallets of these voters, many of whom earn six figures. Quite the contrary: it defies political logic that Obama has made higher taxes on upper-income voters such a critical part of his campaign when those same voters are in a position to determine the outcome. Romney risks losing them with even the slightest appeal to voters on conservative social issues. These voters are pro-technology and internationalist in outlook and are, as a group, at the core of the U.S.’s competitive advantage. Like three other voter groups, they are up for grabs in 2012.

The Republican strategist and Democratic pollster in their biweekly face-off about Election 2012

Penn: Obama’s announcement that the administration will stop deporting young undocumented immigrants is a win for the president on all levels. This order functionally enacts parts of the DREAM Act and fulfills one of Obama’s most scrutinized campaign promises. It distances the president from a Congress that is gridlocked on the issue and widely unpopular. And it represents a decisive bite-size government action that is meaningful among others to a growing and important subset of the electorate — Latinos. It’s a smart political move with tangible political consequences in this election season.

Obama’s action directly targets Latinos who are playing an increasingly important role in presidential elections. Latinos constituted 9% of the electorate in 2008 and 67% voted for Obama. They will likely break 10% for the first time in 2012 and, in addition to helping carry Democratic bastions such as California and New York, Latinos are the key to Obama’s chances in several swing states such as Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico.

Obama is presently beating Romney among Latinos 61% to 27% and his announcement will only further help to consolidate the Latino vote behind him. This order is the closest he can come right now to enacting the DREAM Act, the components of which a sweeping 90% of Latinos support.

Negative advertising can raise legitimate questions about candidates and are actually good for democracy

It’s quite popular to condemn negative advertising. It’s a great applause line on the stump.

Newark Mayor Corey Booker recently got front-page headlines by condemning Obama’s ads about Romney and Bain Capital — until he had to take his comments back because, I would guess, the Republicans were using them as attack lines against the President. President Obama defended his negative ads, saying they are about Romney’s character and fair game. Romney started his own negative ads, though he quickly repudiated a proposed negative campaign against Obama that would have focused on the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright. And everyone condemned it, though it appears it was never even made and certainly never ran. That’s the first time I’ve seen just thinking about running negative ads condemned.

It was Johnson who ran the Daisy ad against Goldwater in 1964, but it’s the Republicans who popularized negative ads by using them broadly under Lee Atwater. To be fair, both sides use them now, but usually Republicans take the hit for being more negative. In 1996, we ran mostly negative or comparative ads for President Clinton while Bob Dole ran mostly positive ads, but 2-to-1 voters thought we were positive and the Republicans negative. We began all our negative ads with the phrase “Another negative ad from the Republicans…”

So I’ll say something unpopular. Negative ads are by and large good for our democracy. And when they are not — when they overreach unfairly, they boomerang and the people who ran them take a well-deserved hit. But when they focus us on something important — like who would make a better commander in chief, who would fix the economy or when they bring up past events that need a real vetting — they do a service. They don’t let politicians off the hook and hold them accountable for their past actions.

President Obama faces his single toughest electoral challenge with white men – and his support for gay marriage, while favored by most voters, probably will make it an even tougher slog with this key group in Midwestern swing states.

According to Gallup’s most recent tracking poll, only 40 percent of white voters approve of how the president has done his job. With white men it’s only about one in three. And just 23 percent of men believe the economy is starting to recover.

Older, rural, white men, especially in the South, are probably out of reach for the president because race is likely a factor with them. So he has to focus on better educated, more tolerant, moderately upscale suburban men – Soccer Dads. Both men and women find Obama equally likeable but they dramatically split on whether he shares their values, according to a recent CNN/ORC International poll.

Penn: Going after the Obama administration over its handling of the Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, as the Romney campaign recently did, was a mistake. The far more sensible path when a sensitive diplomatic maneuver is underway is to sit tight and root for America to succeed. As a rule, you never step into an ongoing matter involving the security and prestige of the United States and potentially also give aid and comfort to the other side in the process.

The president and his team have made major progress on the image of the United States abroad, in finding and killing Osama Bin Laden and winding down the Iraq war. A Democrat’s typical weakness has become a strength, and Romney only took himself off message last week — and looked small.

Recent polls show that only 7% of Americans view foreign policy and related issues as the most important problem facing the country today, with some polls registering the importance of foreign policy as low as 1%. These same polls show that 72% of Americans named an economic issue as the most important for the country to focus on.

Romney needs an election on the economy. An anemic jobs report gave him a potential opportunity. But instead, Romney spent days trying to trigger national security criticisms of the Obama administration and, even if he succeeded, which I doubt, he will not have won any new votes anyway.

Penn: It’s déjà vu all over again. Just about every election since 1932 has been about the economy, and the 2012 race is no exception.

According to a recent Gallup poll, when asked to name off the top of their minds the most important problem facing this country today, 72% of Americans named an economic issue.

Right now no one is winning the economy as an issue with critical swing voters. According to a recent New York Times/CBS poll, only 13% of independent voters are very confident in Obama’s ability to make the right decisions about the economy. Only 12% are very confident in Romney.

But Obama can, as he did in 2008, definitely win the economic issue. He did it then because in the face of an economic collapse, Obama presented himself as the steady hand with a plan. People are still looking for that kind of leadership. So far Obama has focused on the Buffett rule, problems with Wall Street and the issue of inequality.

The key to winning the economy is broadening his economic message from income inequality to the larger problems that are engulfing the country and much of the world. He has to focus more on how we can use America’s know-how to succeed in this new global innovation economy; comprehensive tax reform; and a budget deal that will give business the confidence to hire.

Over on the other side, Romney is still in the infancy stage when it comes to an economic message — and the once-moderate Massachusetts governor moved to the right during a primary in which he tried to appease the Republican base. His quick turn to embrace tax cuts and conservative policies like those of the Ryan budget plan has left him off-message and off-center. Ryan is a ticket to electoral oblivion.

Obama’s message may need some broadening but while Romney has experience in business, his shift to the right on the economy has created an opening that Obama can once again fill.

Penn: President Barack Obama has some key advantages that he should press in the battle against Mitt Romney, the likely Republican nominee. First, a gender gap is emerging with Obama leading by as many as 19 points on women’s issues in some polls and holding on to this advantage may be the key to victory. The Republican party has backed itself into a corner when it comes to women’s rights. Therefore Obama should be looking to revive the Violence Against Women Act that needs a constitutional fix, raise equal pay for equal work (even men favor that!) and in general revisit the safeguards that moms need to protect their kids in an increasingly turbulent online world. In 1996, no TV would be manufactured without a v-chip. Today it’s the cell phones and computers that need a v-chip so that parents can let their younger kids use these new technologies without fear about how they can be misused.

Second, Obama has now pulled ahead even among independents and that means that continuing to emphasize that he has a sound approach to balancing fiscal responsibility with our nation’s values and priorities is critical to his re-election. David Brooks may say he went too far in criticizing the Ryan budget, but the truth is that the President is on the right track with the idea that Romney-Ryan is a ticket to electoral oblivion, just as Dole-Gingrich came to stand for unacceptable cuts in Medicare and Medicaid.

Third, Obama needs to win the 26% of the electorate whose households earn more than $100,000. He connected with them last time and they were his key to victory in 2008 — his margin twice-over came from this important and growing group of professionals and households with dual incomes. That’s why “Buffett rule” days are as likely to lose him votes as gain them — these voters want to know what Obama is going to do to create new jobs through innovation and by mastering the global economy. That’s where he can retain and even make gains with this group.

Fourth, he should remind the voters that every day he is working to make their lives better. That’s why news like the FCC’s new database to track stolen cell phones and smartphones is not small bore — it’s the kind of thing that shows how the administration is looking out for people and their everyday problems.

Obama has a lot of advantages now as we begin to enter the one-on-one phase of the election and he has to press these advantages to win.

If the Supreme Court knocks out the guts of the Affordable Care Act — the individual mandate requiring people to purchase health insurance or pay a fine — the battle within the Obama campaign will be fierce. The president will be faced with two stark alternatives: launch the political equivalent of a drone strike on the Supreme Court and use the ruling to energize his base, or accept the decision and move on, hoping to neutralize the divisive law in the general election.

In the first scenario, President Obama would double down rather than back down. So far, he has shown no willingness to compromise on the individual mandate despite massive public opposition to the measure. In the face of a Supreme Court ruling against the law, a defiant president may seek to make an even more strident case for his vision for health care in America.

Already, the talking points for a war on the high court are being put in place by organizations such as the Center for American Progress. The story line is simple and potentially effective: From Bush v. Gore in 2000 to the Citizens United decision in 2010 to the possible Obamacare ruling, the Supreme Court puts politics above the people in the name of the Constitution.

This argument could play among an electorate predisposed to suspect the worst.A Bloomberg News survey taken shortly before the oral arguments found that 75 percent of Americans believe that politics will influence the justices’ decision on the health-care law. If the court kills the act, then Washington is reduced to a triple play of gridlock — between the president, Congress and the Supreme Court, nothing gets done.

The Obama campaign could paint the court as out of step with the modern world, in which the state needs to help redress the inadequacies of global and national markets. After all, the mandate is about everyone paying their fair share toward health care; it eliminates free-riders from the system.

Penn: Overturning the healthcare law would be a drastic curtailing of Congressional power that will set off a political firestorm that won’t be good for the Court or the body politic.

The Court would in essence be saying that universal healthcare will either have to be provided to everyone at no charge or that requiring people to pony up for healthcare they need will require a constitutional amendment, just as the income tax needed one back in 1913.

Faith in government institutions is already at a record low. Just last fall Gallup reported that 81% of Americans expressed “historic negativity” towards the U.S. government. Yesterday a Bloomberg News poll showed that 75% percent of Americans believe that the Justices’ health care vote will be influenced by their personal politics.

Although this healthcare plan is not popular in recent national polls (47% against in the New York Times/ CBS poll; 42% against in the Washington Post/ ABC poll) such a ruling would put a fork in the ability for Congress to legislate universal healthcare. It would disillusion people even further – Congress doesn’t act much now and when it does it gets overturned. This would be the triple play of gridlock – from the President to Congress to the Court, nothing gets done.

If this suit against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is successful, then perhaps people would want to re-open the requirements for wearing seatbelts or banning kids from sitting in the front seat under age 12. Maybe the mileage standards would have to be rolled back or the EPA standards we have come to rely upon to protect our air. Perhaps we need to reconsider Social Security under similar grounds. Advocates of more states’ rights would use the decision to re-open the debate of the general power and authority of the federal government.

The Republicans would cheer a ruling overturning the plan as a major victory. I think it would boomerang though as the American public doesn’t want to be denied a path to universal care and the decision would create a rallying cry for President Obama and his campaign. The conservative judges would be seen as once again having put a political rather than a legal stamp of opinion on the bill. The politically surer path for the Court would be to let universal healthcare be a matter between the President, Congress and the voters. If they don’t like the plan – and a lot of people don’t – then people can exercise their rights this November. Stopping Congress under any circumstances from requiring people to get healthcare to protect themselves and the greater community seems at best anachronistic and would only further undermine a political system already under a cloud of doubt.

Penn: The sobering numbers coming from the polls the past few days show that to win re-election, President Obama must do more than simply ask for another four years to let his policies work. He has to make a major leap into the center to deal with the volatility coming from the record number of independent voters in the electorate. His job approval is at 41% in the latest New York Times/CBS poll and 46% in the Washington Post/ABC News poll.

The developing storyline was that an improving economy mixed with a divided Republican electorate should have shot President Obama’s numbers sky high, putting the race out of reach for the Republicans. But the public wants to see more than just job growth — they want to see President Obama grow in the job. They are concerned that difficult situations in Iran and Afghanistan are raising the stakes on who occupies the Oval Office, as his foreign-affairs numbers dropped 10 points in New York Times/CBS poll. And while the fight over contraception coverage energized the base, it also revealed a more divided electorate on the issue than expected when it comes to rules for religious institutions.

I have to admit, I was ready to say that the President had turned the corner based on recent events and that his campaign seemed to have reached a more even footing compared with the rocky and chaotic Republican primary. But numbers like these send you back to first principles: 1) the President has to keep working to overcome doubts about his leadership by being a President first, not a candidate; 2) he has to move more decisively into the center, which means less about raising taxes and more about streamlining and modernizing government; and 3) he has to run on a forward-looking and comprehensive economic plan that deals directly not only with spending but also with trade, immigration, energy prices and a host of other issues holding the country back from real economic growth in the 21st century.

Americans remain moody and pessimistic about government and everyone in it; however, they remain open to President Obama. These unexpectedly low polls serve as a warning sign that he has to keep searching for the right key to the door of re-election.

Hughes: Gas prices and federal budget deficits are rising, and so are tensions in the world. If they aren’t already, alarm bells should be sounding at President Obama’s campaign, because these two new polls, the New York Times/CBS News and Washington Post/ABC News, show Americans are not at all happy with the way the President is dealing with those issues and are deeply worried about the President’s performance — or more accurately, his failure to perform — both at home and abroad. These polls are the most recent reminder of just how vulnerable the incumbent President is during this election year.

Gas prices and federal budget deficits are rising, and so are tensions in the world. If they aren’t already, alarm bells should be sounding at President Obama’s campaign, because these two new polls, the New York Times/CBS News and Washington Post/ABC News, show Americans are not at all happy with the way the President is dealing with those issues and are deeply worried about the President’s performance — or more accurately, his failure to perform — both at home and abroad. These polls are the most recent reminder of just how vulnerable the incumbent President is during this election year.

Penn: What Republican challenge? While the Democrats had a long primary process in 2008, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama emerged from that contest as credible presidential possibilities; in this case, the Republican contenders are being diminished, not enhanced, by the bloody contest.

And unemployment is down, the Dow is up and President Obama is in election mode. Fired up and ready to go with his blueprint for America, Obama is rising in the polls.

The President’s budget is not without points of attack. It expands government and raises taxes — problems he describes as virtues in a spirited defense of government spending to protect middle-class values while raising taxes on the affluent. But so far Mitt Romney, one of the wealthiest candidates paying one of the lowest tax rates, has been ill-equipped to join the battle. He is self-interested in lower taxes for dividends and capital gains and so he comes to the debate tarnished by his perceived motivations.

The President has fared well these last two months. But this race is building for the day that there is a Republican nominee and a joint debate on the economy and the budget, which will be about more than unemployment statistics and deficits — it will be a clash of ideologies. Neither Obama nor Romney, if he is the nominee, come from the true extremes of their party; they nevertheless have very different outlooks on taxes and government spending that are going to be at the heart of the election come November.

For now, Obama has put together a strong case that his approach is beginning to work and that it’s time to raise taxes on the affluent to fund maintaining entitlements. So far, the Republican rebuttal has been fragmented and ineffective, but it’s not until the argument is joined one-on-one that the voters will make their firm choices for the presidency and decide the direction the country will take on these big issues.

Hughes: President Obama’s supporters may be feeling a little better this month, thanks to slightly lower unemployment numbers. But to borrow the President’s new favorite phrase, the Obama team’s current sigh of relief is not “built to last.”

Americans’ unprecedented pessimism continues, with 63% believing the country is on the wrong track according to a recent Rasmussen Reports poll. And no wonder. At 8.3%, unemployment is still higher than President Obama’s Administration promised it ever would be. And if you count the estimated 3 million workers who are so discouraged that they have given up looking for work, today’s actual unemployment stands at more than 10%. A record number of Americans are living in poverty, and the housing crisis continues, with more than 1 million homes likely to be foreclosed on this year. Most discouraging, the President’s most recent proposals indicate he’s not serious about any fundamental changes.

In the worldwide marketplace, corporations are continuously being judged by vastly different audiences. From Germany to Brazil, today’s consumers are tuning in to more than just performance; they’re judging corporations on their citizenship. Yet, based on our findings in the inaugural Global Corporate Reputation Index, which was released at this year’s World Economic Forum Annual Meeting by Burson-Marsteller, Landor Associates, Penn Schoen Berland and Brand Asset Consulting, corporations aren’t getting or effectively processing that message.

In fact, across the six countries (Brazil, China, Germany, Japan, Russia and the United States) surveyed, citizenship, defined as how responsible a corporation is to its community, consistently lagged in comparison to corporate performance, suggesting a lack of emphasis on citizenship in today’s corporate marketplace. Companies can and should use this finding as a clear opportunity to strengthen their reputation by demonstrating and communicating more actively their commitment to good corporate citizenship.

With record snowfall, spirited Occupiers, and thought leaders from across industries and around the globe congregating in Davos, Switzerland, this year’s World Economic Forum was laser-focused on current worldwide crises at hand. Aptly themed, “The Great Transformation: Shaping New Models,” the conversation was heavily influenced by the debt crisis in Europe. The larger questions about inequality, how capitalism is working, and how to redefine fairness in the 21st century were discussed at length.

TIME IDEASHas Newt’s Challenge Hurt Romney or Made Him Stronger?Republican strategist Karen Hughes and Democratic pollster Mark Penn in their bi-weekly faceoff about Election 2012

Penn: Newt Gingrich has been a great candidate in the way that the Titanic was a great ship. It has been very attractive to board, but we know where it’s headed. Of course Gingrich believes he is unsinkable, and, for that, Democrats must be very grateful.

So thank you Gingrich for running a negative ad campaign in Florida so that the Democrats don’t have to. You have literally saved the Obama campaign, Democratic National Convention and Democrats around the country millions of dollars. Moreover, you have all but done the work for the Obama opposition research team. From painting Mitt Romney as someone having a “profound character problem” to acting “totally dishonest,” you have torn apart his record at Bain Capital, made him release his tax returns and forced him to deplete his bank account.

Thank you Gingrich for further fragmenting the Republican Party. You have self-declared this GOP nomination a two-person race between yourself, the conservative leader, and Romney, the Massachusetts moderate. In doing so, you are working to depress conservative voter turnout in the general election.

Thank you Gingrich for bringing prolonged drama and grandiose schemes to this primary season. With 46 states to go, you have ample opportunity to remind us of the reasons why moon colonies and farmers in space should be a priority going forward as well as why employing poor children to serve as janitors to earn money is a good Republican idea.

As he did during the ’95-’96 federal government shutdowns, Gingrich is once again bringing his unique brand of brinksmanship to hector Romney and the Republican Party.

Hughes: That which does not kill you makes you stronger. That old adage came to mind as I watched Romney overcome the most serious threat to his campaign thus far with a decisive victory over Gingrich in the important and diverse state of Florida.

To his great credit, Romney seems to be relishing the fight and rising to the occasion. As he said in his well-crafted Florida victory speech, “a competitive primary does not divide us; it prepares us.” Candidates rarely enjoy a genuine threat to the survival of their campaigns. But unless it knocks them out, it almost always makes them better. After John McCain dealt a stunning 19-point defeat to then-Governor George W. Bush in the 2000 New Hampshire primary, we had to re-tool. We had let McCain’s attacks against our candidate go unanswered, we realized, and allowed McCain to steal the mantle of reform. We developed a sharp new message describing George W. Bush as a “reformer with results” and contrasted his executive decision-making experience with Sen. McCain’s years in the Senate. Instead of the usual campaign speeches, Gov. Bush began having town hall meetings, where he was forced to answer lots of questions he might have preferred to avoid — but it helped him hone his answers and demonstrate his ability to think on his feet.

The Romney we saw campaigning in Florida lived up to his promise to show that the GOP nomination is worth fighting for. He rose to Newt’s challenge to his frontrunner status with two of his best debate performances. After coming across as both dodging and defensive about his income and income taxes in South Carolina, he delivered a full throated and effective defense of his wealth, saying:

“I have earned the money that I have. I didn’t inherit it. I take risks. I make investments. Those investments lead to jobs being created in America. I’m proud of being successful. I’m proud of being in the free enterprise system that creates jobs for other people. I’m not going to run from that. I’m proud of the taxes I pay. My taxes, plus my charitable contributions, this year, 2011, will be about 40%. So, look, let’s put behind this idea of attacking me because of my investments or my money, and let’s get Republicans to say, you know what? What you’ve accomplished in your life shouldn’t be seen as a detriment, it should be seen as an asset to help America.”

It was one of the strongest statements of the campaign thus far, and it’s exactly the argument Republicans need to make this fall to confront President Obama and his attempts to attack success and divide Americans based on income. As he fights Newt’s attacks on his tenure at Bain, his record as Governor and his financial success, Romney is refining his message for the fall campaign and ironically, showing that he is what Republicans want most: the candidate capable of taking on and defeating President Obama.

Tonight, President Obama has the kind of opportunity that former President Clinton had in 1996 — a chance to jumpstart his presidency, set the framework for his election and show that he has a dynamic agenda for America’s future in the 21st century.

The mess on the Republican side, along with improving economic numbers, has given him a singular opportunity to break through with the American people. The Republican presidential candidates have now proved as fractious and mean-spirited as the Republicans in Congress, widening the president’s opportunity.

So he has to give a speech that is long on job creation and short on rhetoric that could be interpreted as class warfare. In this speech, he has to bring America together and rise above politics and partisanship. It’s a time for tough words on Iran along with strong support for Israel. It’s a time to embrace optimism and the ability of America to succeed in the face of adversity. And it’s time to mend fences with the business community by bringing back offshore profits to jumpstart the economy. Above all, he has to give Americans renewed hope in his ability to restore the American Dream for this and the next generation.

After a year in which it looked like the Republican Party was headed to the extremes with Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, Herman Cain and then Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney last night took 49 percent of the Republicans who voted in the New Hampshire open primary.

And the more centrist the Republican nominee, the more centrist the president needs to be in order to win in 2012. The huge ideological gap that would have made running against the Republicans an easy romp is disappearing as the exit polls show that even primary voters are choosing practicality over partisanship. In both Iowa and New Hampshire, Romney won with those voters who thought he had a better chance to beat President Obama in November.

Despite Ron Paul’s popularity with youth and Jon Huntsman’s popularity with Democrats, Romney managed to still win the registered Independents and those who identified as socially moderate and liberal. The attributes that have been a weakness to Romney during the primary season will likely be his strengths in the general election if he clinches the nomination in the next contests.

Mark Penn, chief executive officer of Burson-Marsteller and a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton, and John Sununu, a former Republican U.S. senator and a Bloomberg contributing editor, talk about the results of the Iowa caucuses and the outlook for the New Hampshire primary. They speak on Bloomberg Television’s “InBusiness With Margaret Brennan.”

TIME IDEASHow Much Could Change in the Race Next Year?Republican strategist Karen Hughes and Democratic pollster Mark Penn in their bi-weekly faceoff about Election 2012

Penn: If there is one thing that has been true about every pundit’s prediction so far about 2011, it’s that it’s been wrong. Just as the stock market has gyrated erratically, so also the political marketplace has faced much the same kind of uncertainty and instability.

Let’s look at the last few months:

Obama is looking better, just after he was looking dire.

The economy is coming up, just after it was declared dead.

And Newt Gingrich is fading, just after he was pronounced the unexpected frontrunner.

So this suggests that either a) conventional wisdom will win out and Mitt Romney will be the nominee against a vulnerable President Obama and the rest of this is just noise or b) the Republican primary will descend into utter chaos with Obama looking stronger going into the general election.

At this point, I think future b — chaos — is more likely to happen.

Ron Paul could now win Iowa being the ultimate come-from-behind candidate. And if that happens, Romney would be so weak that maybe Jon Huntsman would finish higher than expected in New Hampshire and get back in the race. Gingrich could win South Carolina and then the primary season could go on for several months as a multi-candidate race with no clear winner.

That would give a clear path to Obama to seize the day with a strong State of the Union and re-launch of his campaign and his presidency with the backdrop of a strengthening economy.

Newt could then ultimately win the nomination after a long drawn-out battle, only to have a third party candidate enter the race and either unexpectedly win with a plurality that could be overturned by the House of Representatives. Or the third party candidate could just serve as a spoiler that tips the election to Obama, who would only need about 40% to win.

Far-fetched? So far based on 2011, only the unexpected can be what’s expected for 2012.

Hughes: The only reasonable prediction after a year that has seen five different candidates lead in the race for the Republican nomination is this: sometime next year, my party will have a Republican nominee. (Of course, we used to say, Win or lose, come election day, it’s over. Then came 2000 and the Florida recount.) But once the campaign moves from a season of straw polls and speculation into a time when Americans walk into voting booths and make their choices, things tend to change fast. And sometimes very dramatically.

How dramatically? Consider that in mid-December, 2007, this same time in the presidential election cycle four years ago, everyone thought that Hillary Clinton would be the Democrats’ nominee. Rudy Giuliani led the polls in the Republican contest, followed by Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, while John McCain was in fourth place with a dismal 12 percent support in the Real Clear Politics average of national polls.

On Jan. 3, voters in Iowa will begin answering these questions: Is Newt Gingrich’s lead as transitory as it was for several other candidates in 2011? Will Romney’s organization deliver a win in New Hampshire and a stronger than expected showing in Iowa? Can another candidate emerge from down in the pack with a surprising finish in one of the early states?

Only the voters will decide, and I have some holiday homework for my fellow Republicans. Think hard about which of our candidates can actually win in the general election, and which would be an effective and respected President. Which candidate can have appeal beyond our Party and attract the Reagan Democrats and other swing voters who will be critical to victory? President Obama is vulnerable, and the only way for our country to change course, restore confidence, return to strong growth and lead the world to greater peace and freedom is to defeat him in November. The eventual outcome of the election may well hinge on the choices made by Republican primary voters in the spring of 2012.

With the Republican primaries now just weeks away, the range of observers who are watching polls and assessing campaign strategies is expanding beyond political wonks and news junkies.

While politics has always been an avid spectator sport, lately it’s become a field that offers valuable lessons for business. Political campaigns have traditionally been among the most sophisticated users of polling and statistics, and that remains true. Over the last decade, however, as baseball embraced the concepts featured in “Moneyball” and the general public became fascinated by the world of “Freakonomics,” many other fields have become adept at using data to make better decisions–corporations among them.

Here are five lessons from political campaigns that every business can learn from.

Find the New Voter/Consumer. In the 1950s, the mobile middle class changed our society by creating the suburbs and the suburban lifestyle, driving both the economy and politics. Today, I believe our economic and political landscapes are being driven by the growing numbers of a new professional class of college-educated, new-economy workers. From computer software engineers to veterinarians, the new professional class made the decisive difference in the 2008 general election for Obama, and they have fueled the dramatic growth of upscale brands like Apple.

In the last Democratic re-election in 1996, we coined and targeted the Soccer Mom – married, suburban, mostly working women who cared passionately about protecting and raising their kids. It was the Soccer Mom who replaced the traditional Democratic target of downscale, non-college, manufacturing sector men; the country wasn’t producing any more of these voters because at that time we had an economy that created 24 million new jobs, but not one in manufacturing.

In the last two elections, one in four voters had household incomes over $100,000, up from just 9% in 1996. The growth of the two-income, college educated household with a broader view of the world is a fundamental change represented by Obama himself, who came from the professional class. In 2008, Obama even won the 6% of the voters making over $200,000, giving him his margin of victory. The new professional class is growing in influence. If Obama expects to win a second term in the White House, he has to reharness—not push away—the political goodwill he captured from this group in 2008.

Mark Penn considers the statistical likelihood of a third-party candidate in the US presidential election in this video from the gala dinner of The Economist’s World in 2012 Festival on December 1st 2011 in New York City.

Ron Paul for threatening to launch a third party in the event he does not win the primary.

All 27 Republican primary debates. Each one has delivered quality sports programming even during the NBA lockout.

Hughes: This week’s question made me think of the Sunday school class I teach, where our virtue of the month is “gratitude.” We’ve been talking with the kids about the need to cultivate an “attitude of gratitude,” to try to find and be thankful for good things, even when circumstances seem difficult. So in that spirit, even after a congressional super committee failed to find common ground on beginning to reduce our ballooning national deficit, we can be thankful that:

Congress takes lots of recesses (under the theory that what they don’t do can’t hurt us.) In Texas, our legislature meets for only 140 days every two years and we like to joke that many Texans think it should be for two days every 140 years.

There are probably now fewer than 999 times during this Republican primary season that Herman Cain can say 9-9-9 in answer to any debate question.

All the leading Republican presidential candidates have much more leadership experience than President Obama did when he was elected: Mitt has shown calm, capable leadership in business, as the Republican Governor of a Democratic state and in rescuing a failing Olympics; Newt has an overflow of ideas and knows how to lead Congress; Cain has a strong record in business and an outsider’s perspective, and Perry has overseen strong job growth in the diverse state of Texas.

In just about six weeks, the voters — instead of us pontificators — will begin deciding which candidates are actually ahead or behind.

On a more serious note, even at a time when trust in our political institutions and distrust of our politicians seem to be at the opposite, wrong ends of the spectrum, I am grateful that:

Good people from both political parties are still willing to put their names on the line, endure the criticism that inevitably comes, and run for office out of what I believe is most often a genuine desire to make our communities and our country better.

Many young people — like the impressive student leaders I have met recently in Texas, Iowa and Louisiana — still care about public policy and want to get involved.

We are free to voice our complaints and work for change if we don’t like the way things are going.

We are blessed to live in a country that, while far from perfect, has made great progress toward living up to its own grand ideals, and we are grateful for the men and women of our armed services who sacrifice to keep us free. That’s something that I hope close to 100% of my fellow Americans can agree on. Happy Thanksgiving!

Penn: Republican presidential candidates are daily violating President Reagan’s 11th Commandment — Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republicans. From debate finger-pointing to smear campaigns, infighting among GOP presidential hopefuls is heightening as we head into the primary season and it doesn’t bode well for the Republican Party.

Far and away, the American people are looking for a president to create jobs and fix the economy. Yet, the discussion right now is filled with Herman Cain’s allegations of sexual harassment and questions as to who leaked the story. The Cain campaign accused the Perry campaign, who in turn raised the possibility that the Romney campaign was behind the disclosure of the allegations. Then Cain started again and blamed the “Democratic machine.”

Moreover, with Romney still hitting Perry on immigration and Perry peddling Romney as a flip-flopper any chance he can get, it’s no wonder that none of the GOP candidates can get their polling numbers above the 30% mark. These low numbers fuel in-party attacks, and they put the frontrunner position in a vulnerable, yet attainable state. As a result, Republicans at large are once again looking for a new face to enter the race. Things are looking desperate as talk of Palin or Trump entering the race has begun anew.

While it’s too early to measure the lasting impact of the sexual harassment charges against Cain, it won’t be too long before the GOP as a whole runs out of time to turn around its image in time for Election Day. Whoever does win the Republican nomination may just be too bloodied and bruised to get into the ring with Obama.

Hughes: Giddy, goofy and grumpy are not the words most Republicans would want applied to a week of presidential primary politics, but they are nonetheless an accurate description of a week that saw one campaign having to deny its candidate had been drinking, and another fending off allegations of sexual harassment.

On-stage in New Hampshire, Texas Governor Rick Perry appeared to be having a lot more fun campaigning than his current poll numbers would seem to merit. His speech gave new meaning to the word punchy, and became fodder for late night comedians. But the more lasting ramifications on the primary race could come from Herman Cain’s inability to put the sexual harassment story behind him.

Cain spent the week looking mad about accusations he hotly condemned as false. His campaign tried to divert attention by accusing (apparently falsely) another campaign of leaking them, then by week’s end, Cain made the classic mistake of thinking he could unilaterally declare the story dead. “We are getting back on message, end of story,” he told reporters. If you have any doubt that doesn’t work, just ask former Congressman Anthony Weiner.

Now that a fourth woman has come forward, moving the story from vague allegations to tawdry specifics, Cain must find a way to effectively communicate his side of the story. He needs to provide facts and context, not blanket denials that he “has never acted inappropriately with anyone, period.” This story will not go away until the questions are credibly addressed. And Cain desperately needs other voices to speak up on his behalf. Where are the senior women who have worked with him and can speak up for him?

Mitt Romney may well be last week’s winner, by staying out of the headlines and staying focused on his economic plan. Jobs are still the number one issue for the American people, and when voting starts, Republicans will choose a candidate they believe can most effectively run against President Obama’s dismal economic record.

Can Republicans recover? Absolutely, but the onus is now on the Cain campaign to effectively rebut these allegations if he wants to stay in the top tier of candidates.

Penn: Obama is resilient. He proved in 2008 that he knows how to size up a tough spot and come out swinging. This time around he is facing another rough patch, only now he has to come out swinging for the swing voter.

Obama has to distance himself from the Republican right by occupying the center and rebuilding the coalition he had just a few years ago when he brought together those in the lowest and highest income classes — in 2008, he won the lion’s share of everyone making under $35,000 and got a remarkable half of the 26% of the voters whose households make over $100,000. Never before have so many voters fallen into that category and never before had so many of them voted Democratic. He has to keep his coalition together with a second-term agenda that unites them rather than divides them.

Obama’s ratings are hovering around 40%, a big drop from the lofty levels of two years ago, but he certainly could come back from here, as others have. He needs to get near 50% to tip the odds back in his favor. Given tough economic conditions, the best alternative is a relentless drive to show how his presidency is making a difference every day in the lives of average Americans.

While the Republicans tie themselves up in knots in their primary season and continue to be led by the Tea Party, their ratings are sinking lower and lower. National frustration is building and although the voters have real concerns about the President, few think the Republicans have a better idea. On issue after issue, the voters prefer the Democratic solution to the Republicans. And that means that there is a lot of hope for less change than the Republicans are counting on and a path to re-election.

Hughes: To quote an infamous campaign aside, President Obama is in trouble … “big-time.” As he launches his re-election campaign – far too early – he is undermining the very rationale that made him President in the first place.

“As a leader, you have to balance the desire to say something right away with the need to get the facts,” Mark Penn, chief executive officer of Burson- Marsteller, says in Bloomberg Businessweek’s Sept. 26 edition. “People typically err on the side of saying something too soon and then have to eat most of what they said.

There are two phases: the hurricane and the cleanup. During the hurricane, you’re trying to keep the house standing and keep your organization functioning. Whether you win, lose, or draw, unless all the employees are on board and focused, you’ve lost. When the immediacy of the crisis is over, then you figure out what changes to make and how you rebuild your image. It can be a two-year process, but most companies recover.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton is the best crisis responder I’ve ever worked with. He’s a strong leader, and he’s goal-oriented to solve the problem, whether it’s the nation’s deficit or impeachment. He won by going against the conventional wisdom of crisis management. People think you should get out there and apologize and everything will be fine. That’s not always true.

In some industries you can anticipate what the likely crisis will be. You need a plan and the right person out there as the central voice. Don’t throw your chief executive officer in the middle of every story. In the BP Plc crisis, CEO Tony Hayward underplayed the gravity initially, and then he arguably overplayed it because he was on the defensive. Was there a workaround? Sure. He could have hired General Colin Powell. If there’s a massive incident in the Gulf of Mexico, the person you’d have the most confidence in is someone from the American military.”

And most of all, he should be bringing the country together rather than dividing it through class warfare.

When Al Gore faced a close presidential race in 2000, he abandoned running on peace and prosperity in favor of the people vs. the powerful, only to see his lead evaporate. When John Kerry was facing a tough race in 2004, he spent the last few months after the convention tacking to the left on the Iraq war and other issues to stimulate the base, only to fall even farther behind.

But when Bill Clinton was facing the fight of his political life in his 1996 re-election, he got rid of all the class warfare language used by traditional Democrats, got behind welfare reform and the balanced budget, and supported a strong, activist government that spent and taxed less rather than more. As a result, Clinton trounced the Republican nominee and was the first Democrat to serve a full eight years since Roosevelt. And the country got behind the president.

About Microtrends

"Unrelentingly fascinating ... a diligently researched tome chock-full of counterintuitive facts and findings that may radically alter the way you see the present, the future, and your places in both." -- The New York Times

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